CenterPoint says power restored to 262,000

Crews from across United States converging to help

LYNN COOK, Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

Published 5:30 am, Sunday, September 14, 2008

As of this afternoon, CenterPoint Energy had restored power to 262,000 customers in Houston and surrounding areas, up from 112,000 Saturday evening. So far the best success has been on the west side of town in Fort Bend County, Katy and Sealy, according to spokesman Floyd LeBlanc.

Even though heavy rain and new flooding hampered CenterPoint's efforts early this morning, LeBlanc says crews are now working across the city and the company has marshaled 10,000 linesmen and other utility personnel from around Texas with some coming from as far as California and Pennsylvania on Monday and Tuesday to aid its efforts.

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So far 1,500 of them are working to restore power with the majority of them set to roll into neighborhoods Monday after aerial damage assessments have been completed.

Initial reports from CenterPoint personnel who rode in helicopters last night and around lunchtime today are that even though 25 percent of the transmission system is down in the south and east parts of the service area, most problems appear to be with debris, such as huge tree limbs hung up on the high wires.

So far CenterPoint has not spotted any transmission towers crumpled from the hurricane-force winds.

"That's really good news," LeBlanc says.

One exception to the initially positive report is Galveston Island.

LeBlanc says the island sustained significant damage to power substations, which are flooded with sea water. There is also more destruction to transmission towers in the area.

Entergy Texas also is struggling with damage to more than 150 of its transmission towers, including several toppled structures along rights of way, according to spokesman David Caplan.

Northeast of Houston, communities including The Woodlands, Conroe, Splendora and Liberty sustained some of the worst transmission damage in the Entergy electricity service area.

The company will build new transmission towers in a fabrication yard and ship them into affected areas, but company officials warn the hardest hit communities might be without power for three weeks or more.

Sporadic pockets of power are slowly but surely coming back, but for most of the region it's a block-by-block exercise. Some — though far from all — residents in Bellaire, Pasadena, First Ward, and Richmond report their electricity is flowing.

Chronicle readers who had power Sunday afternoon or were able to access the Internet with mobile phones wrote in about their situation.

One family in the Spring Terrace subdivision near Kuykendahl and FM 2920 got power back at 2 a.m., but they report neighboring subdivisions including Willow Dell and Lakes of Avalon Village are still dark.

A woman whose home is near the intersection of Highway 6 and Voss Road in Fort Bend County reports her power came back Saturday around lunchtime. A resident of the hard-hit East End said the power never went off.

Last night only a few points of light shone in Houston as the majority of electricity was knocked out by Hurricane Ike across the entire region.

Power company officials struggled throughout the day to assess storm damage to the region's power grid, warning residents it could take days, if not a week or more, to restore electricity to the entire area.

Initial reports from CenterPoint were that 99 percent of its 2.26 million customers were snuffed out. Sunday afternoon 82 percent of the service area is powerless.

The Texas-New Mexico Power Co., which services communities south of Houston, said 17,000 of 115,000 customers had been turned back on, but company officials warned the main transmission line into Brazoria County is down and urged those who evacuated to stay away for now.

Entergy Texas has not provided an updated number of power outages today. As of Saturday evening virtually all of its 395,000 customers stretching from The Woodlands to Port Arthur were without electricity.

All together, close to 5 million people had no electricity on the Texas Gulf Coast.

CenterPoint service crews rolled into neighborhoods to make repairs as soon as the hurricane passed, but new rains and flooding Sunday morning hampered their efforts.

The Federal Aviation Administration also prevented the company from deploying a squad of helicopters until late Saturday afternoon. Those choppers are used to make aerial damage assessments, spokesman LeBlanc said. In the first hours after the hurricane, the FAA allowed only medical transport to take flight.

The biggest problems facing all three power companies is damage to their transmission systems.

More than just poles and wires, the transmission system is the vast network of metal towers that run along grassy rights of way, bundling massive megawatts and delivering them to neighborhood substations.

Power losses affect not only residential air conditioning, lights, refrigeration and communication. Running water supply depends on the flow of electricity, and gas stations need power for pumps to function.

The power companies warned of a painstaking restoration process, with first priority going to key infrastructure such as hospitals, water treatment plants and police and fire stations. Residences in those neighborhoods also may get their power back.

Second-tier power restoration includes key retailers such as grocery stores, gas stations and building supply stores.

To give some historical perspective to the process of relighting the grid, Hurricane Alicia in 1983 left 750,000 customers of what then was Houston Lighting & Power without electricity. More than half a million got their power back in the first four days, but it took almost two more weeks to restore the rest.

The magnitude of Hurricane Ike's damage is exponentially bigger. This time around 2.1 million CenterPoint customers lost power in the Houston area. As of Sunday afternoon that number has dropped to 1.84 million customers without power. (A customer can comprise several people, such as a household.)